Racing History Minute - 1976 Winston Western 500

The 1976 500 mile race at Riverside, the first race of a new season, would see one who had experienced heartbreak and drama all those years on the road course, come to the top of the heap on the January afternoon. In fact, the young driver would lead all but one of the final 79 laps to win the event.

Bobby Allison qualified the Roger Penske Matador on the pole with a speed of 112.416 mph with David Pearson in the Wood Brothers Mercury capturing the second starting spot. Third place started was Benny Parsons in the L.G. DeWitt Chevrolet and fourth place was Buddy Baker in the Bud Moore Ford. Dave Marcis put the K&K Insurance Dodge in fifth starting spot.

Bobby Allison would lead the first 18 laps before yielding to Dave Marcis who led for one lap. On lap 20, Richard Petty who returned to the track after major stomach surgery, took over first spot in his Dodge, having moved up from 27th starting position. Richard gave way to Benny Parsons on lap 24 and Benny stayed out front for 13 laps, finally losing the front spot to Cecil Gordon. Gordon's lead was short lived as he led one lap before Chuck Wahl moved in front for 3 laps.

On lap 42 it was Marcis in the red K&K Dodge back out front until Cale ran him down and took over on lap 48. Two laps later, Pearson moved past Cale and led until lap 65 when Petty took over again for 10 laps. On lap 75 the engine in the Petty Dodge began to sputter and finally, on lap 83, it was over for the STP entry as Petty went behind the wall. David Pearson, Chuck Bown, Cale Yarborough and Dave Marcis ran together and swapped the lead back and forth through lap 82 when Pearson showed some Wood Brothers power and took over for 45 laps before a scheduled pit stop which allowed Cale to lead one lap. Once Cale stopped, it was all Pearson to the end. Pearson would win his first Riverside Race and the 6th one for the Wood Brothers. Pearson had a 35.9 second lead over second place Cale Yarborough as 54,700 fans watched the race.

Bobby Allison blew the engine in the Matador in the early going but the Penske crew installed a new engine in 63 minutes to return Bobby to the competition. With two laps to go, the second engine blew but Bobby was able to salvage a 15th place finish for the day.

After the race, Pearson said, from Victory Lane "I have always had bad luck here, but everything went just fine this time. The Wood boys didn't change a nut or bolt on this car since it got here". The average speed for the event was 99.180 mph having been slowed by 5 caution flags for a total of 20 laps of the 191 run.

Finishing order:

1. David Pearson, Wood Brothers Mercury, winning $17.295.00

2. Cale Yarborough, Junior Johnson Chevrolet, winning $14,920.00 (35.9 secs back)

3. Jimmy Insolo, Roger Paquette Chevrolet, winning $8,620.00

4. Ray Elder, Fred Elder Dodge, winning $6,745.00 (1 lap down)

5. Benny Parsons, L.G. DeWitt Chevrolet, winning $4,445.00 (2 laps down)

6. Lennie Pond

7. Richard Childress

8. Dave Marcis

9. James Hylton

10. Bill Schmidt

11. Frank Warren

12. D. K. Ulrich

13. Larry Esau

14. Ron Esau

15. Bobby Allison

16. Chuck Bown

17. Gary Matthews

18. Ed Bradshaw

19. J. D. McDuffie

20. Carl Joiner

21. Darrell Waltrip

22. Chuck Wahl

23. Cecil Gordon

24. Hugh Pearson

25. Richard Petty

26.Bill Polich

27. Don Puskarich

28. Buddy Baker

29. Gary Johnson

30. Hershel McGriff

31. Johnny Ray

32. Sonny Easley

33. Dick Brooks

34. Sam Beler

35. Harry Jefferson

Honor the past, embrace the present, dream for the future.

Tim - You've finally reached that point of your Riverside series where a race's anniversary falls on the date of your post. The 76 WW500 was raced on January 18, 1976.

A point of clarification - You mentioned Petty coming off major stomach surgery. Are you referring instead to the surgery he had in the 1978 off-season that had many questioning if he could start the 1979 season? While he may have been dealing with ulcer issues in 75-76 time frame, I don't think he had gone through any surgery for them at that point. He DID however come into 1976 with his bicentennial beard.

Race program from Motor Racing Programme Covers :

Several neat photos shared by  Daniel Mensinger at TheVRL.com.

The Winston show car from the annual Riverside pre-race parade.

Front row with Bobby Allison in the CAM2 Matador alongside eventual race winner Pearson.

Buddy Baker - Benny Parsons - Dave Marcis behind the front row

The King's Dodge - I wish I had one of those PETTY windshield banners.

Darrell Waltrip - I've always liked chrome wheels on Cup cars. But I also liked the silver / gray look on them too along with the white GOODYEAR logo on the tires (vs. the yellow lettering on them we have now).

Ray Elder

A few more from the race

James Hylton

D.K. Ulrich

Cale's Holly Farms Chevy

Richard Childress, Hershel McGriff & Ron Esau

Ray Elder racing Yarborough

DW with one of those 1976 DiGard engine woes

I really like this one - The King racing by the full grandstands

The Junior Johnson team became very proficient at changing engines in less than 15 minutes and in 1979, Di-Gard was able to keep DW in the points hunt when they changed his engine in 11 minutes during the September 23, 1979 Old Dominion 500 at Martinsville as noted in the excerpts below from Associated Press accounts in the Fredericksburg (VA) Free Lance Star and Wilmington (NC) Morning News :

I liked the Goodyear "Blue Streak" Stock Car Specials that preceded the Eagles. Probably because that was the tire on Richard Petty's #43 when I saw it up close in the pits for the first time in 1964. That's the same tire that AJ Foyt had Goodyear send to him at Indy in 1963 - the Blue Streak Stock Car Special.

Back 7 years ago, a guy on the Corvette Forum was offering $1,000 each for any Blue Streaks if you happen to have some lying around!

If you look at the 13th and 14th finishing positions, you'll see the same last name - ESAU . That name is synonymous with outstanding west coast stock car racing. If you remember back in the inaugural year of the NASCAR SuperTruck Series, it was the 14th place finisher, Ron Esau who Ken Schrader put in his truck at Monroe, Washington when Schader had a finger severed.

The 1976 Riverside race would be the last of 4 Cup starts for older brother, Larry Esau . He drove a second J.D. McDuffie car - the #7 Chevy - to a finish position one spot ahead of his younger brother and six positions ahead of his car owner, J.D. McDuffie 's #70.

Today, tjhe brothers Esau operate a noted a Door and Trim business in El Cajon, California . If that town sounds familiar, it might be because that fellow some call "6-Time" was born there - just 4 months before the Esau brothers finished one behind the other at a track that closed before "6-Time" had a driver's license!

Here's a photo by David Allio taken 8 years later of younger brother, Ron Esau leading the impressive pack of Derrike Cope, Dale Earnhardt and Terry Labonte through a Riverside corner during the November 1984 Winston Western 500.

In early 1988, Ron Esau's fellow NASCAR Winston West competitor, Jim Robinson (whose daughter, Brenna Robinson McNeil is a member here at RR) suffered life threatening injuries in the 1988 NASCAR Southwest Tour portion of the Copper World Classic at Phoenix.

Esau then took Robinson's #78 Oldsmobile to Australia for the only NASCAR Cup type event ever staged "down under."

With "Jim Robinson Fund" lettered on the #78, Esau turned a tremendous qualifying lap and started 5th in the NASCAR Goodyear International 500K in an impressive field at Australia's Calder Park ThunderDome ! It was quite a feat that Esau turned in the Robinson car for his fellow competitor who would linger in a coma for seven years before passing in 1995.

Link to James Robinson Remembered at RacersReunion:

http://stockcar.racersreunion.com/group/rememeberingjamesrobinson?commentId=1981311%3AComment%3A598163

How bold (or foolish?) was NASCAR and Riverside that day? Riverside's Winston Western 500 went head-to-head against Super Bowl X being played in Miami. Admittedly, the two weren't competing for TV viewers nationally as the race wasn't aired. Yet, fans locally had options. Sounds like the track still had a packed house. That scenario would be impossible to pull off today.

34th place finisher Sam Beler with a tough day in his one and only Cup race.

As they did with Richard Petty, folks were talking about Hershel McGriff's retirement decades before he did finally hang up his helmet.

Jim Walker won the preliminary Permatex 200 LMS race on January 17th.

And sounds like Ivan Baldwin and the pride of Newport TN, L.D. Ottinger, had a dust-up during the race. I think Baldwin welcomed L.D. to town just about every time the southern guys traveled west.

Baldwinwasn't nicknamed "Ivan the Terrible" for nothing.

You can listen at the link below to the interview Barney Hall and Jim Phillips did with L.D. Ottinger recapping his career on MRN Radio's "Tailspin" show in the summer of 2015.

http://media.weei.com/a/107681525/mrn-talespin-l-d-ottinger.htm

I had the opportunity at the end of LD's career to do the racing PR for his sponsor Detroit Gasket in the 1989 Busch Series season. LD is a super nice fellow. Detroit Gasket had a large manufacturing plant just down the road from LD's little Newport, Tennessee shop. Jim, who is also from Newport, worked with LD in his shop at one time.

Bump